The only reason you give a shit is because he killed Afghanis. He would have done the same thing if he was home, and you wouldn't have even batted an eye. A psycho is a psycho no matter where they are in the world.

The only reason you give a shit is because he killed Afghanis. He would have done the same thing if he was home, and you wouldn't have even batted an eye. A psycho is a psycho no matter where they are in the world.

Nailed it. You could argue that being deployed or PTSD (he had multiple tours) triggered it, but he had to have something psychologically wrong with him in order for it to be a platform. A couple years ago, before it was made illegal here in Louisiana, we had a soldier, who had never deployed, smoke salvia with two other soldiers, pass out, wake up, kill both of them and then go tell his neighbors what he did and then sat out on the curb and waited for the cops.

Speaking of psychos- can someone correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't there like a handful of school shootings recently? Maybe handful is a bit strong, but I want to say it was more than one.

I've deployed four times, I've been psychologically evaluated before and after each deployment. While you meet with counselors individually, each time, and have a ton of classes on how to recognize warning signs in your fellow soldiers, these things happen. It REALLY sucks, but there are far too many variables for someone to psychologically forecast the human brain.

I am not advocating or justifying what he did AT ALL, I am just saying that when you have a volunteer Army that's been engaged in two highly unpopular, difficult to justify wars and you have people go there, for extended periods of time, multiple times, bad shit happens. I don't know, I got way too involved in the last conversation about this and my days left in the military is in the teens. I guess I am just glad what I got (and DIDN'T get) out of the military and that it's soon to be just something in my past.

Nah, I specifically mentioned occupying armies because they are under way more psychological pressure and are more likely to crack than dudes who are at home. Having a defensive army is still a necessity for most countries (unfortunately)...I'm saying it's another reason not to occupy another country (no matter how small this incident is in the great scheme of things).

Logged

Hosin' out the cab of his pickup truckHe's got his 8-track playin' really fuckin' loud

The only reason you give a shit is because he killed Afghanis. He would have done the same thing if he was home, and you wouldn't have even batted an eye. A psycho is a psycho no matter where they are in the world.

Nailed it. You could argue that being deployed or PTSD (he had multiple tours) triggered it, but he had to have something psychologically wrong with him in order for it to be a platform. A couple years ago, before it was made illegal here in Louisiana, we had a soldier, who had never deployed, smoke salvia with two other soldiers, pass out, wake up, kill both of them and then go tell his neighbors what he did and then sat out on the curb and waited for the cops.

Terrible.

My old roommate was a captain in the Marines and he told me how he had smoked salvia by himself one night then ended up putting a loaded gun in his mouth, taking it out, and putting it back in repeatedly while losing his mind in salvia land.

Soldiers and civilians suffer during war. The military and civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are currently around 7,700 deaths for coalition forces and 122,000 civilian deaths. There's an urge to draw comparisons to Vietnam and other traumatic events in US history, but the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are not yet over. They're the longest wars that the US has ever engaged in and there are still the complicated issues that Iraq and Afghanistan will have to face along with the uncertainties of the 'Global War on Terror', or whatever the government has decided to call it now:

In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department's office of security review noted that "this administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.] Please use 'Overseas Contingency Operation.' "